Chapter 1: Five Hands on a Virgin
The study smelled of beeswax and whiskey, a masculine scent that clung to the velvet drapes and the scarred surface of the massive oak desk. Hero’s own scent, the faint rosewater from her bath, felt foolish here. Childish. The tears had stopped, leaving her face tight and salted, but a heavier silence had settled inside her chest since the church. Since Claudio’s voice, so sure, so cold, cutting her name to pieces in front of everyone.
Don John poured two fingers of amber liquid into a crystal glass. He didn’t hand it to her. He simply placed it on the desk near her trembling hand. “They speak of ruined virtue,” he said, his voice a low murmur that blended with the candlelight’s flicker. “A meaningless phrase. Virtue is a story told by the powerful to control the fragile. You are not ruined. You are unburdened.”
She stared at the glass. Her white gown, once a symbol of that very virtue, felt like a shroud. “He looked at me as if I were filth.”
“And so you are, in his story.” Don John leaned against the desk, tall and lean, his sharp features softened only by the shadows. “The question, sweet Hero, is whether you wish to remain the weeping victim in his tale, or become the author of your own. A far more interesting one.”
He let the words hang. A log shifted in the fireplace. Somewhere in the silence, a door opened and closed. Footsteps, more than one set, sounded in the hallway beyond the study, then quieted. She knew they were there. Borachio. Conrad. The others. Don John had been clear about the alternative path. An education. A reclamation.
“I feel nothing,” she whispered, but it was a lie. Beneath the numbness, a treacherous heat had begun to pulse, low in her belly. A memory of Claudio’s disgust had, perversely, sparked it. The fantasy of being what he accused her of.
“Feeling is what we will cultivate.” Don John’s hand, cool and dry, tipped her chin up. “Lie back on the desk, Hero. Let the world see what it has so wrongly judged.”
Her breath hitched. The wood was solid, unforgiving against her back as she obeyed, the bouquet of late lilies she still clutched crumbling beside her. The velvet of her skirt pooled around her hips. The portcullis screen in the corner seemed to grin in the half-light.
The door opened. Borachio entered first, his bulky frame blocking the light for a moment. A cruel smile played on his scarred face. Conrad slinked in after, his eyes roaming her body with open lechery. Balthasar followed, his handsome face a mask of gentle concern that didn’t reach his eyes. Last was Verges, his portly, fatherly figure looking incongruous, his hands clasped over his belly as if in prayer.
“There now,” Verges said, his voice jovial. “No need for fear. We are all friends here, seeking to… mend your wounded spirit.”
“By fucking it full of cock,” Borachio grunted, earning a sharp glance from Don John, who merely moved to the head of the desk, a silent overseer.
“Hush, Borachio. Language. The lady is in distress.” Verges approached, his manner soothing. He lifted her left foot, his touch surprisingly deft, and began to unbuckle her slipper. “We shall start with gentleness. Balthasar?”
The singer moved to her right side. His fingers, long and skilled, began to knead the tense muscles of her shoulder. “So much sorrow held here,” he murmured, his voice a melodic lie. “Such a delicate vessel for such grief.”
His other hand stroked her hair. It felt good. The kindness, even false, was a balm. She let out a shaky sigh, her eyes fluttering closed. Verges had her slipper off and was massaging her arch, his thumbs pressing in a rhythm that made her toes curl.
“See? Tension unwinding already,” Verges cooed.
Conrad was at her left side now, his breath hot and sour near her ear. “Think of Claudio,” he whispered, the words slithering. “Think of him watching his pristine virgin now, with a fat old man’s hands on her pure little foot. Getting it wet for the rest of us.”
A shock went through her, but it was tangled. Shame, yes, a sharp blade of it. But beneath that, the heat surged, damp and undeniable. She whimpered.
“Her body betrays her high thoughts,” Conrad snickered to Borachio.
Borachio didn’t wait for further invitation. His big, rough hands shoved the layers of her skirt and petticoats up past her knees, her thighs. The cool air of the room kissed her bare skin. She gasped, eyes flying open.
“None of that,” Borachio said, his grin wide. “Let’s have a look at the goods that caused all the trouble.” He hooked his thumbs into the waist of her thin linen drawers and tugged. The fabric tore with a soft, scandalous rip.
She cried out, a sound of pure shock, and tried to bring her legs together. Verges held her right ankle fast, his grip firm. “Now, now, child. Acceptance is the first step to power.”
Don John watched, sipping his whiskey, his expression one of academic interest. “The conflict is the point, Hero. Embrace it. This is the self you were forced to hide.”
Borachio spat on his fingers. He didn’t bother with preamble. He pressed two thick fingers against her, rubbing roughly through the soft hair, then pushing inside.
She arched off the desk with a choked scream. It was not pain, not exactly. It was violation, absolute and shocking. It was also a release. The scream melted into a ragged moan as his fingers worked in and out, the crude wet sound filling the room.
“Tight as a virgin,” Borachio announced to the room. “But wet. Dripping for it. Liar’s cunt knows what it wants.”
Balthasar leaned over her, his gentle hands still on her shoulders, his face inches from hers. “You look beautiful like this,” he murmured, his voice a filthy caress. “A broken angel, getting her wings fucked off.”
Conrad’s hands were on her breasts, squeezing through the gown’s bodice, pinching her nipples until she cried out again. The pain was bright, clarifying. Verges released her foot, his hands moving to her knees, prying them apart wider. “Such a lovely offering,” the old man rasped, his jovial tone gone, replaced by naked hunger.
Borachio withdrew his fingers. She heard the clink of his belt buckle, the rustle of his breeches. Her vision was blurry with tears, but she saw the thick, ruddy length of him spring free. He was huge, brutal.
“This is what you are,” Conrad hissed in her ear. “A hole. A common hole for men to use. Say it.”
She shook her head, sobs wrenching her throat. Borachio gripped his cock, smearing the head against her, coating it in her own slick. The sensation was obscene. Terrifying. Arousing beyond reason.
“Say it,” Don John commanded softly from the darkness. “Own the lie. Make it true.”
“I’m a hole,” she gasped, the words tearing from her. “A common hole.”
Borachio drove into her with one brutal, shearing thrust.
The pain was white-hot and immense, a splitting, burning fullness that stole the air from her lungs. She screamed, a raw, animal sound, her nails scrabbling on the polished oak. He didn’t pause. He set a punishing rhythm, each drive pounding her body into the hard desk, making the glasses rattle.
“There’s the deflowering,” Borachio grunted, sweat already beading on his brow. “Fucking ruined now, for sure.”
The pain began to blur, to mutate. The sheer fullness, the raw friction, started to spark something else deep in her core. A coil tightening. Her sobs became interspersed with ragged, involuntary moans. She hated it. She craved it.
“Look at her,” Conrad laughed, one hand leaving her breast to yank her hair, forcing her head to the side so she could see Verges unbuckling his own trousers. “She’s coming already on his crude prick. Slut.”
Borachio’s pace became frantic, his grunts louder. With a final, deep grind and a guttural roar, he spilled inside her, hot and profane. He pulled out, slick and spent, and staggered back.
Before the emptiness could register, Conrad was there, pushing her onto her side, her torn gown tangling. “My turn. I want this weeping mouth.”
He fumbled his cock, already leaking, toward her lips. She turned her face away. Verges’s hand, surprisingly strong, gripped her jaw and forced it open. “Open for your betters, girl.”
Conrad shoved himself in. He tasted of salt and bitterness. She gagged, tears streaming anew. He held her head still and fucked into her mouth with short, sharp jabs, his hips pistoning. “Suck it, saint. Clean the peasant off it. That’s it. Take it deep.”
She choked and sputtered, her body convulsing. Yet, the humiliation was a fire that burned everything else away. Claudio. The shame. The future. All incinerated, leaving only this raw, screaming present.
Conrad spent with a choked cry, his release flooding her throat. She swallowed convulsively, coughing as he withdrew.
Balthasar was next. He turned her onto her stomach, the rough wood scraping her cheek. He pushed her gown up to her waist, his touch now impatient. He positioned himself behind her. “A prettier arse I’ve never seen,” he breathed, and entered her from behind where she was still stretched and wet from Borachio.
This was different. Deeper. His hands gripped her hips, his thumbs digging into the small of her back as he hammered into her. The slap of skin on skin filled the room. The coil in her belly wound tighter, a desperate, shameful peak approaching. She was moaning openly now, a continuous, broken sound.
Verges moved in front of her, his bald head gleaming. He presented his own stiffened flesh to her swollen lips. “Comfort an old man, dear,” he panted, and she, obedient in her madness, opened for him.
She was filled at both ends, used utterly, a vessel of sweat and spit and seed. Don John watched it all, his dark eyes reflecting the frantic scene. Hero’s world narrowed to the pounding rhythm, the choking fullness, the filthy words raining down on her.
As Balthasar’s thrusts grew erratic, as Verges groaned above her, the coil inside her snapped. A climax tore through her, violent and annihilating, a wave of pleasure so intense it felt like pain, wracking her broken body with spasms. She screamed around Verges’s flesh, the sound muffled.
One by one, they finished.
Silence fell, broken only by ragged breathing and the soft crackle of the fire. They withdrew from her. She slumped forward onto the desk, a mess of torn white fabric, gleaming skin, and dripping proof of her ruin. The smell of sex and sweat was overwhelming.
Don John finally moved. He stood over her, placing a cool hand on the back of her neck. She flinched.
“Look at me, Hero.”
With tremendous effort, she turned her head. Her eyes were glazed, empty.
He smiled, a thin, satisfied curve of his lips. He dabbed a handkerchief in a spilled glass of whiskey and gently wiped a streak of seed from her cheekbone. “Now,” he said softly, his voice the only clean thing in the room. “Now you understand your own power. The story is yours.”
She looked past him, at the dark window reflecting the wreckage on the desk. The innocent bride was gone. Something else, hungry and broken and awake, stared back.